The six tactics in Benchmark Email’s 2021 article can help organize lead-generation work, but they do not guarantee a threefold return. To find out whether a campaign is paying off, follow the full path from campaign cost and source to qualified lead, sales opportunity, and closed revenue. Measure that path consistently before increasing traffic or declaring a winner.
What lead-generation ROI should measure
Start by defining the outcome and the calculation. “ROI” can mean different things: a common cost-based formula is (return minus cost) ÷ cost, while some reports use revenue divided by spend. State which one you use, what counts as return, and whether the calculation includes only campaign spend or other costs as well. Do not compare percentages calculated on different bases.
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A useful scorecard connects these measures for each campaign and source:
- Campaign spend and lead source.
- Leads that meet your qualification criteria, not just form submissions.
- The share of qualified leads that become sales opportunities.
- Closed revenue attributed under a stated model.
- Time from campaign response to qualification, opportunity, and close.
Cost per lead is helpful for monitoring acquisition cost, but it cannot show whether those leads become customers. A low-cost source may produce few qualified prospects; a more expensive source may contribute more to pipeline or revenue. Choose measures that fit your sales cycle and unit economics.
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Six practical tactics to improve lead-generation results
Benchmark Email published “6 Tips On How To Triple the ROI on Your Lead Generation Efforts” on September 2, 2021. Although its introduction mentions nine strategies, the visible article contains six numbered sections. These are recommendations to test, not demonstrated proof of a particular ROI lift.
1. Nurture prospects with stage-appropriate communication
Match follow-up to what a prospect has already done and what they need next. Someone who has just downloaded an introductory guide may need useful educational material; a prospect evaluating solutions may need a product-focused explanation or a conversation with sales. A sequence should advance the relationship rather than send the same message to everyone.
Agree on the signals that move a lead between stages, the messages each stage receives, and when a person should be handed to sales. Track whether nurtured leads qualify and progress to opportunities, not just whether they open or click messages.
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2. Align landing pages with the prospect’s journey
A landing page should continue the promise made by the ad, email, or other link that brought a visitor there. Make the offer, audience, and next step clear. Avoid sending every prospect to a generic page if different campaigns address different needs.
Evaluate page performance with downstream measures where possible: qualified leads and opportunity progression, alongside submissions. A page that increases form volume but attracts poorly matched prospects may not improve business results.
3. Follow up with existing leads and prior prospects
Review leads already in your CRM before spending more to reach new people. Some may be uncontacted, stalled, or ready for a relevant next step. Use their history and current context to decide whether to reconnect, provide a useful update, or route them to sales.
Set follow-up ownership and timing so that a lead does not disappear between marketing and sales. Measure reactivated leads by qualification and opportunity creation, rather than counting every reply as a win.
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4. Coordinate account-level marketing for B2B
When a sale involves several people at one organization, coordinate messaging around the account rather than treating each contact as an unrelated lead. Make sure marketing and sales can see who has engaged, what was communicated, and which next step is appropriate.
Account-based work is most useful when the target account and buying group are clearly defined. Assess progress at both the contact and account level, then connect it to opportunities and revenue rather than relying on engagement alone.
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5. Keep workflows consistent
Document how leads are captured, assigned, qualified, nurtured, and passed to sales. Consistent rules make it easier to respond reliably and to compare campaign outcomes. Review exceptions too: duplicate records, missing source data, delayed follow-up, and leads that do not meet the agreed criteria can distort reporting.
CRM and marketing-automation tools can help manage these workflows, but automation by itself does not demonstrate ROI. The process still needs sound definitions, accurate data, and outcome tracking.
6. Analyze lead sources alongside production and outcomes
Compare channels using the same measures: spend, qualified-lead rate, progression to opportunity, closed revenue, and time to outcome. Review both rates and totals. A small campaign can have a high ROI percentage while a larger, still-profitable campaign contributes more overall revenue.
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For paid search, Salesforce documents a Google Ads connector that can link advertising costs with opportunity data to estimate cost per qualified lead and search-marketing ROI. Its instructions depend on supported Salesforce editions and implementation; see Salesforce’s Google Ads Connector documentation. Salesforce’s Sales Insights Lead Analysis documentation covers lead source, conversion rate, conversion speed, and activities generating opportunities.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Choose an attribution model and time window
Attribution is the method used to assign credit for an outcome to marketing activities, channels, or touchpoints. Salesforce describes touch-based attribution as assigning credit across interactions and funnel-based attribution as tracking progression through defined stages. The first helps examine which interactions contributed; the second helps examine movement through the pipeline. They answer different questions.
Specify the model and lookback window in every comparison. A different model or window can assign credit to different campaigns, particularly when prospects interact with several channels before buying. Do not compare channel ROI figures if their attribution rules differ.
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Why “triple the ROI” is not an established promise
The 2021 Benchmark Email article is useful as a list of tactics, but its visible text does not cite sources for its numerical claims about landing-page conversion, customer response preferences, personalization, repeat-versus-new-customer sales probability, or ad clicks. Those figures should not be treated as verified benchmarks without checking their original publications.
There is no well-supported general benchmark here establishing the typical ROI lift from these six tactics. Salesforce reported a Forrester Consulting estimate of 299% ROI over three years for a composite organization based on interviews with five organizations using Salesforce Marketing Cloud. That vendor-published result from a commissioned study describes that composite, not a typical business outcome or proof that these tactics triple returns: Salesforce’s January 17, 2023 report.
Quick Recap
A simple way to make the next decision
- Write down the ROI formula, included costs, conversion event, attribution model, and lookback window.
- Set lead qualification and opportunity definitions with the people responsible for sales follow-up.
- Track campaign source and spend through qualification, opportunity, and closed revenue.
- Compare channels on the same scorecard, including time to outcome as well as rates and totals.
- Change one part of the process at a time where practical, then assess downstream outcomes before scaling spend.
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